Archive

Ireland v UK 2018

Judgement of ECHR | 20 March 2018

ECHR have rejected application by Irish Government to revise the original judgement in the Hooded Men case ROI v UK 1978. The 1978 judgement found that the treatment constituted inhuman & degrading treatment, but not torture. Today the ECHR has upheld that judgement 6-1 (Judge O'Leary dissenting- se...

The Museum of British Colonialism

| 25 September 2018

AN EXPLORATION OF BRITISH COLONIALISM The Museum of British Colonialism has been realised to creatively communicate a more truthful account of British colonialism. We have a documentary and a pilot exhibition in the works and will use this site to gather, share, present and comment on material and r...

Britain should stop trying to pretend that its empire was benevolent

May 13, 2016 | 10 October 2018

Interesting 2016 article from Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex on Britain's attitude to empire and the racist underpinnings of the view that the empire was benevolent. Published in The Conversation.

Facts about Atrocity: Reporting Colonial Violence in Postwar Britain

2 February 2018 | 22 August 2017

ABSTRACT What did people in Britain know about the violence of counterinsurgency campaigns at the end of empire in the 1940s and 1950s? In many ways, British knowledge about colonial violence was widespread. But it was also fragmented and ambiguous: whispered among family and friends; dramatized in...

Families challenge MoD and Prime Minister in London

PFC | 15 November 2016

British Prime Minister Theresa May warned the recent Tory party conference about what she called: "… activist, left-wing human rights lawyers [who] harangue and harass the bravest of the brave – the men and women of Britain’s Armed Forces". She also vowed to defend soldiers against "vexatious allega...

What price a life? May's rhetoric and the MOD's reality

Tom Griffin, Spinwatch | 16 November 2016

In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, recent months have seen an increasingly chauvinistic tone in British politics. One aspect of this has been a concerted campaign against investigations of abuse by the Armed Forces. Conservative MPs have pressed Theresa May to curtail the activities of the I...

Ireland v. UK: Revisiting the Treatment of the 'Hooded Men'

Philip Leach, Jurist | 06 December 2014

The Irish government announced this week that it is applying to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to re-open the case it instigated in the early 1970s against the UK government concerning the treatment in detention of fourteen IRA suspects, following their arrest by the British army under in...

Torture Retold: How the Hooded Men case has come back under the spotlight

Rita O'Reilly, Irish Times | 12 June 2014

It was January 31st, 1972, the day after Bloody Sunday. The head of the army department in the British Ministry of Defence, John M Parkin wrote to the Chief of Staff, Northern Ireland, Brigadier Marston Tickell, seeking the facts on more than 100 allegations of torture and inhuman and degrading trea...

The RTÉ programme that prompted the Irish Government to seek a re-opening of the case at the European Court.

Amnesty International urges action by UK and Irish governments

Amnesty International Press Release | 24 November 2014

‘A request to the European Court must be lodged within the next two weeks. The clock is ticking’ - Colm O’Gorman. Allegations that the UK government sanctioned the use of torture and ill-treatment in Northern Ireland in the 1970s should be re-examined by the European Court of Human Rights and subjec...

The Hooded Men

Press release KRW LAW LLP | 24 November 2011

KRW LAW LLP is instructed by a number of The Hooded Men, those interned by the British government in August 1971. These 12 men became the guinea pigs in the British army’s deployment of ‘deep interrogation’ or what has become known as The Five Techniques. These techniques had been developed in the p...